parts, there is the like occasion to commend any other number; the number five from the stars in Sagitta, three from the girdle of Orion, and four from Equiculus, Crusero, or the feet of the Centaur: yet are such as these clapped in by very good authors, and some not omitted by Philo. Nor are they only extolled from arbitrary and poetical grounds, but from foundations and principles, false or dubious. That women are menstruant, and men pubescent at the year of twice seven is accounted a punctual truth; which period nevertheless we dare not precisely determine, as having observed a variation and latitude in most, agreeable unto the heat of clime or temper; men arising variously unto virility, according to the activity of causes that promote it. Sanguis menstruosus ad diem, ut plurimum, septimum durat, saith Philo which notwithstanding is repugnant unto experience, and the doctrine of Hippocrates; who in his book, de diæta, plainly affirmeth, it is thus but with few women, and only such as abound with pituitous and watery humours. : 6 It is further conceived to receive addition, in that there are seven heads of Nile; but we have made manifest elsewhere, that by the description of geographers, they have been sometime more, and are at present fewer; in that there were seven wise men of Greece; which though generally received, yet having enquired into the verity thereof we cannot so readily determine it: for in the life of Thales, who was accounted in that number, Diogenes Laertius plainly saith, Magna de eorum numero discordia est, some holding but four, some ten, others twelve, and none agreeing in their names, though according in their number. In that there are just seven planets or errant stars in the lower orbs of heaven: but it is now demonstrable unto sense, that there are many more, as Galileo hath declared; that is, two Nuncius Syderus. 5 elsewhere, See book vi, c. 8. 6 more,] Honterus reckoned of old, noe fewer then 16: whereof now the slime of Nilus (since itt was banked in divers places) hath obstructed eleven.Wr. center of the universe fixte and immoveable, as the Copernicans contend, then there are but 5 primarye planets as they call them. For the moon they say is a secondary planet, and the earthe another. -Wr.-We must suspect an error in (!) 7 seven,] Yf the sun be sett in the this note. more in the orb of Saturn, and no less than four or more in the sphere of Jupiter. And the like may be said of the pleiades or seven stars, which are also introduced to magnify this number; for whereas, scarce discerning six, we account them seven, by his relation, there are no less than forty." That the heavens are encompassed with seven circles, is also the allegation of Philo; which are, in his account, the arctick, antarctick, the summer and winter tropicks, the equator, zodiack, and the milky circle; whereas by astronomers they are received in greater number. For though we leave out the lacteous circle, (which Aratus, Geminus, (and Proclus, out of him,) hath numbered among the rest,) yet are there more by four than Philo mentions; that is, the horizon, meridian, and both the colures; circles very considerable, and generally delivered, not only by Ptolemy, and the astronomers since his time, but such as flourished long before, as Hipparchus and Eudoxus. So that, for ought I know, if it make for our purpose, or advance the theme in hand, with equal liberty we may affirm there were seven sibyls, or but seven signs in the zodiack circle of heaven. * That verse in Virgil, translated out of Homer, O térque quatérque beati, (that is, as men will have it, seven times happy,) hath much advanced this number in critical apprehensions. Yet is not this construction so indubitably to be received, as not at all to be questioned: for, though Rhodiginus, Beroaldus, and others, from the authority of Macrobius, so interpret it, yet Servius, his ancient commentator, conceives no more thereby than a finite number for indefinite, and that no more is implied than often happy. Strabo, the ancientest of them all, conceives no more, by this in Homer, than a full and excessive expression; whereas, in common phrase and received language, he should have termed them. thrice happy, herein, exceeding that number, he called them * Τρὶς μάκαρες Δαναοὶ καὶ τετράκις. 8 forty.] Discernable by a good telescope.-Wr. 9 seven circles,] The 2 pole circles are in effect but as one, to this intention: likewise the 2 tropicks: let the æquator bee a thirde: the zodiack, a fourth: the horison a fifth; the colure of solstice (i.e. the meridian) a sixte : and the æquinoctial colure a seventhe.-Wr. four times happy, that is, more than thrice. And this he illustrates by the like expression of Homer, in the speech of Circe, who, to express the dread and terror of the ocean, sticks not unto the common form of speech in the strict account of its reciprocations, but largely speaking, saith, it ebbs and flows no less than thrice a day, terque die revomit fluctus, iterúmque resorbet. And so when 't is said by Horace, felices ter et amplius, the exposition is sufficient, if we conceive no more than the letter fairly beareth, that is, four times, or indefinitely more than thrice. But the main considerations, which most set off this number, are observations drawn from the motions of the moon supposed to be measured by sevens; and the critical or decretory days1 dependent on that number. As for the motion of the moon, though we grant it to be measured by sevens, yet will not this advance the same before its fellow numbers; for hereby the motion of other stars are not measured, the fixed stars by many thousand years, the sun by 365 days, the superior planets by more, the inferior by somewhat less. And if we consider the revolution of the first moveable, and the daily motion from east to west, common unto all the orbs, we shall find it measured by another number, for being performed in four and twenty hours, it is made up of four times six: and this is the measure and standard of other parts of time, of months, of years, olympiads, lustres, indictions of cycles, jubilees, &c. Again, months are not only lunary, and measured by the moon, but also solary, and determined by the motion of the sun; that is the space wherein the sun doth pass thirty 1 decretory days,] Dayes of 24 houres are properly the measure to which wee reduce months and yeares. The rest are not reduced to dayes but years: saving, that in the compute of the æquinoctial procession caused by the Julian excess, wee accompt the thirtythird bissextile daye supernumerary, and to bee rejected. Likewise in the decennovall cycles. The true cycle of the moon is 6939 dayes, 16 houres, moments. The Dionysian Paschal cycle of 19 years, cald the golden number, is 595 Of 6939 dayes, 18 hours: the difference is degrees of the ecliptick. By this month Hippocrates* computed the time of the infant's gestation in the womb; for nine times thirty, that is, 270 days, or complete nine months, make up forty weeks, the common compute of women. And this is to be understood, when he saith, two days make the fifteenth, and three the tenth part of the month. This was the month of the ancient Hebrews, before their departure out of Egypt:2 and hereby the compute will fall out right, and the account concur, when in one place it is said, the waters of the flood prevailed an hundred and fifty days, and in another it is delivered, that they prevailed from the seventeenth day of the second month, unto the seventeenth day of the seventh. As for hebdomadal periods or weeks, although in regard of their sabbaths they were observed by the Hebrews, yet it is not apparent the ancient Greeks or Romans used any; but had another division of their months into ides, nones, and calends. Moreover, months, howsoever taken, are not exactly divisible into septenaries or weeks, which fully contain seven days; whereof four times do make completely twenty-eight. For, beside the usual or calendary month, there are but four considerable: the month of peragration, of apparition, of consecution, and the medical or decretorial month; whereof some come short, others exceed this account. A month of peragration is the time of the moon's revolution from any part of the zodiack unto the same again, and this containeth but twenty-seven days, and about eight hours; which cometh short to complete the septenary account. The month of consecution, or as some will term it, of progression, is the space between one conjunction of the moon with the sun unto another: and this containeth twenty-nine days and an half; for the moon returning unto the same point wherein it was kindled by the sun, and not finding it there again, (for in the meantime, by its proper motion it hath passed through two * De Octomestri Partu. 2 Egypt.] For they used the Ægyptian yeare of months, cald annus canicalaris, from the sun's revolution to the 3 rising of the dogg-star.-Wr. Considerable lunar signs, it followeth after, and attains the sun in the space of two days and four hours more, which added unto the account of peragration, make twenty-nine days and an half; so that this month exceedeth the latitude of septenaries, and the fourth part comprehendeth more than seven days. A month of apparition is the space wherein the moon appeareth, (deducting three days wherein it commonly disappeareth, and, being in combustion with the sun, is presumed of less activity,) and this containeth but twenty-six days and twelve hours. The medical month not much exceedeth this, consisting of twenty-six days and twenty-two hours, and is made up out of all the other months. For if, out of twenty-nine and an half, the month of consecution, we deduct three days of disappearance, there will remain the month of apparition twenty-six days and twelve hours: whereto if we add twentyseven days and eight hours, the month of paragration, there will arise fifty-three days and ten hours, which divided by two, makes twenty-six days and twenty-two hours; called by physicians the medical month; introduced by Galen against Archigenes for the better compute of decretory or critical days. As for the critical days (such I mean wherein upon a decertation between the disease and nature, there ensueth a sensible alteration, either to life or death,) the reasons thereof are rather deduced from astrology than arithmetic: for, accounting from the beginning of the disease, and reckoning on unto the seventh day, the moon will be in a tetragonal or quadrate aspect, that is, four signs removed from that wherein the disease began; in the fourteenth day it will be in an opposite 4 signs.] This was a mistake in the learned author; for the moon goes but one signe in 2 dayes and a half. And how could the sun get through a whole signe in 27 days 8 hours?-Wr. aspect.] Aspect is a certaine distance of the planets wherein they are supposed to hinder or promote the effects which they usually produce in the signes, and in the bodily parts subject to them; according to which acception, conjunction cannot bee properly cald an aspect, though of all other postures in heaven to us it bee the strongest, bycause the planets, however distant in altitude immensely, yet conveye their force conjoyntlye with greater power. Of other aspects, some are cald happye, as the Trigon: first, bycause when planets are 4 signes distant, they are in signs of like nature, agreeinge in the same active and passive qualityes. Next, Sextile, which is of signes agreeing in one qualitye, and disagreeing in another. But quadrate and opposite are in signes of contrarye qualityes, and by their jarringe beames infest each other, and are therefore cald, (not without great reason in nature) malefic. -Wr. |